The present invention relates to folded horn loudspeaker enclosures. Specifically, it relates to front-loaded low frequency horn enclosures that may be used in various radiating angles comprised of at least one or more acoustically reflective surface. The present invention is relatively equally efficient standing vertically or horizontally regardless of the acoustic load present.
The current invention relates directly to my previous U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/900,534 titled “Convertible Folded Horn with Improved Compactness” and can be considered a contribution over my previous invention in that it provides essentially the same level of performance and efficiency, is easy to construct, and provides the increase utility of being able to operate effectively whether placed horizontally or vertically which provides the ability to better operate as a single-driver unit with a smaller footprint depending on the placement, along with an optional upgrade path to a stacked pair as desired.
Front-loaded corner horn enclosures of the prior art have typically not been designed with the idea of effectively operating either vertically or horizontally in other radiating angles in addition to placement in a corner. Although rectangular-shaped horn enclosures might find themselves occasionally placed in a corner for enhanced low frequency response, such enclosures are not particularly optimized for corner operation, and while gaining a low frequency acoustic advantage of some degree from the proximate corner wall/floor boundaries, the rectangular outward shape of such an enclosure does not particularly provide an efficient use of the corner space; nor does it maximize the potential acoustic benefits of such a placement; and further, it does not lessen or prevent the deleterious effects of cabinet and/or horn mouth diffraction; the effects of which may be compounded by the common inability of a rectangular parallelepiped form with a rectangular footprint to effectively and efficiently couple acoustically with the reflective surfaces provided by a corner.
Typical corner horns of the prior art tend to be configured and optimized for corner placement and operation only. The current invention provides several advantages over such prior art; for instance, a smaller footprint can be achieved standing the present invention on its side without altering its performance which provides a slightly taller platform for a high frequency cabinet to propagate sound waves to a seated audience especially in free-standing placement away from walls and corners, but also retaining the ability to efficiently use the space of a corner or a wall-and-floor placement, if so desired. Additionally, retaining the ability to stack enclosures as a dual-driver pair in a corner while remaining competitive in the arena of overall height and general footprint size of other commercially available corner horns of the same general low frequency cutoff provides the same performance and power handling capabilities as the cited prior art device but provides the extra advantage of a smaller footprint size with more effective overall platform height for high frequency propagation when operated as a single-driver unitary cabinet.
It is therefore highly desirable to have a folded horn enclosure of relatively small proportions and footprint size (dependent on placement), capable of horizontal or vertical placement, capable of effective acoustic coupling to at least one reflective surface or combination of surfaces, such as a floor, floor-and-wall, or an environment corner as needed. Further, the ability to stack in various configurations and provide dual drivers the ability to couple electrically and acoustically provides a distinct performance advantage.